Post #167

Subject: Let's Talk Troop Surge

… from The American Conservative:

http://www.amconmag.com/blog

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

Who Wants To Talk About Troop Strain?

July 23, 2008 by Kelley Vlahos

Like every other VIP that’s flown into the Green Zone for the dog & pony-grip & grin, Barack Obama was transported safely from Iraq 48 hours later, leaving tens of thousands of US troops behind. In his wake, the media attention and with it, the mind-numbing debate over timelines and time horizons and status of forces agreements will eventually give way to more pressing issues for these troops whose main contact with home is a tiny camera assisting their email: how to pay the bills, kids acting out in school, the baby on the way.

But the image of Obama and his media pack flying away is indeed symbolic in that lost in the bloodless debate over whether soldiers and Marines should be coming home now or later, at fixed dates or after “aspirational goals” are met, is that experts, including top Army officials, have been saying for over a year that the current force strength cannot keep up with today’s deployment schedule without breaking the service and the men and women in it.

[Yep. I began this blog two years ago because I thought the Army was at a breaking point and therefore George W. Bush’s Napoleonic vision was ending, and I wanted to take a few swipes at the Weasel. I didn’t anticipate the Weasel extending tours of duties and lowering recruiting standards and sacrificing more blood and treasure so that he can hand-off his War to the next President – who undoubtedly will get blamed by Bush for losing Iraq.]

In fact, it seems that talking about the true state of our force strength has become nothing but a strange exercise in denial, with a little smoke and mirrors to keep the American people distracted. The surge allowed for adding five brigades to the existing 15 in Iraq back in March of ‘07. Now that the surge is technically over, those five brigades have been coming home, and will be out of Iraq by the end of the month, according to military officials. That leaves the force strength the same, if not slightly higher than when the surge began – about 140,000 troops. President Bush has said there will be no further draw-downs until conditions improve more. Though there is always the tease – part of the smoke and mirrors component – of future withdrawals, we wait endlessly for something more official.

As I wrote for TAC back in June, many believe that the surge was ended not so much for its tactical successes, but because the brigades had to come home. The 15-month deployments and close to 1:1 deployment/dwell time ratio is and was untenable (the healthiest would be 1:4 and that is a fantasy in today’s war). Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan told me at the time, “We cannot replace them out there without a full mobilization, without total access to the reserve and the National Guard. In the situation now, we cannot do that – we either have to change our strategy or make our Army bigger.”

While the Army and Marine Corps have orders by Bush to grow by 92,000 by 2012, they can hardly expect to start supplying fresh troops and Marines to the battlefield today. As it were, no less than 13 National Guard brigades have already been called up for (re)deployment to Iraq through 2009, ostensibly to replace exhausted active duty components there now.

To be fair, the centerpiece of Obama’s campaign is to bring most troops home within 16 months. However, much of this talk these days is balanced out by his desire to send more troops into Afghanistan. Even worse, say critics Larry Korb and Fred Kaplan, John McCain’s plan not only excludes a timeline for drawing down troops in Iraq, but putting even more troops than Obama envisions in Afghanistan.

Kaplan: Here’s the problem: The U.S. Army is stretched so thin that, according to its own calculations, no extra combat units can be sent to Afghanistan unless the same number of units is pulled out of Iraq. There is no flexibility here. So if McCain wants to put three more brigades in Afghanistan, where is he going to get them?

Referring to Obama’s call for withdrawing troops from Iraq, McCain says, “Sen. Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq.”

Cute, but beside the point. Military strategy involves the application of resources to war aims. If McCain wins the White House, the first thing the Joint Chiefs will tell him is that they don’t have the resources to fulfill his war aims.

[When will McCain ‘straight-talk’ the American people about the sacrifices needed for his war machine? Extended tours? Recruits from prison? A draft? The war machine will need to be even bigger if/when Israel drags us into war with Iran. Will that ‘straight-talk’ come BEFORE the election?]

Korb, with Laura Conley: Sen. McCain’s policy does not account for the strain placed on U.S. forces due to repeated deployments. Of the nearly 1.7 million U.S. soldiers who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq, almost 600,000 have been deployed more than once. As the large U.S. presence in Iraq continues to require repeated deployments, often with insufficient time between tours of duty, the ability of the military to provide significant numbers of combat-ready forces for Afghanistan is diminished.

Increasing security in Afghanistan must be the primary, though not sole priority of the United States. U.S. policy in Afghanistan can and must be revitalized with a commitment to building Afghan government capacity, reining in corruption, increasing reconstruction efforts, removing the terrorist safe haven in Pakistan, and reducing the production of opium.

[Terrorists need to understand that the long arm of swift and sure American justice will get ‘em. I doubt that message is getting thro to those safe havens in Pakistan. The War on Terror can not even begin as long as 9/11 masterminds are on the loose – I hope you-know-who doesn’t die peacefully in his sleep.]

As usual, as these guys point out, the human side of the debate gets lost, particularly in jargon like “aspirational goals,” but let’s get serious here: tens of thousands of men and women have been repeatedly deploying in and out of this warzone for six years, on stints that last anywhere from seven to 18 month each, depending on their branch of service and when they were deployed. Their individual commitments rival, if not exceed, that of their counterparts in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, yet this aspect of the war seems to get lost. Leave the brigades, take out the brigades, transfer the brigades, bring home the brigades – we have to remember there are people involved. As it stands today, 4,125 servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq, 33,000 wounded in action (that doesn’t include tens of thousands of non-hostile injuries and illnesses); 560 killed in Afghanistan. Many lives have been put on hold for the better part of this decade, and, at least now, with no end in sight.

I was struck by the resignation in the tone of one soldier interviewed by the Washingn Post earlier this week on the success of the surge. Asked if the surge worth it, Spec. Derek Taylor, 23of West Virginia, “It was worth it, and it was not worth it – I have a wife and a kid. I go home, and my daughter is 2. She probably doesn’t remember who I am.”

Post #166

Subject: Antonin Scalia, Naked Under his Robes

There used to be a lone voice of solid reasoning that thundered across the political landscape – this is a nation of laws, not of men. Respect for what is written in the Constitution is paramount. But that changed in 2000.

If ever there was one case that the U.S. Supreme Court should have stayed out of, it was Bush v. Gore. Our election for President is not a national election – if it was, Al Gore would have won. But our election is a series of state elections with each state determining its own rules as ultimately interpreted by that state’s Supreme Court – not the U.S. Supreme Court.

The irony is that, if played out according to the law, George W. Bush would have won legitimately. Instead, we have an illegitimate President who was inflicted upon us by Antonin Scalia.

Recently, I saw a TV interview with Scalia and was hoping for a reasonable explanation. Instead, when asked why the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, he answered “the way it was presented, it was a Constitutional problem.” Well, yes or no. Goodness, anything can be presented as a Constitutional problem -- the Supreme Court decides what is or is not a Constitutional problem.

Scalia then went on and said that he considered public opinion, that the public was impatient for a new President. What does public opinion have to do with deciding a case before the U.S. Supreme Court? To Scalia, it is important.

Not only is public opinion important to Scalia, but he also cited world public opinion as a reason the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in Bush v Gore. Scalia was worried that a foreign newspaper – French? – might make fun of the world’s leading democracy when we had to follow the law to determine our President.

Uh, I thought following the law was what a democracy was all about.

Of course, still today, Scalia is wandering… out there. Take, for instance, the recent D.C. gun ban case and show me “self-defense” written in the Constitution. Scalia made convincing arguments as to why the ban was bad policy, but he had to rely on “original intent” as a way to describe the ban as un-Constitutional – that is, he guessed as to what the founders meant so that he could impose his own agenda on the country instead of relying on what is written in the Constitution. Isn’t that known as “legislating from the bench?”

Antonin Scalia – another one. * sigh *

Post #165

Subject: I get e-mails. Pt. II

I got another “Fwd” e-mail the other day about recent anti-terror doings in Australia and how we needed leaders like those in Australia. Well, the e-mail was NOT entirely true. Read the findings at snopes.com,

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/australia.asp

and see that what really happened – kewl, by the way – has been combined with an editorial from a military magazine. What tipped me off – encouraged me to look – was the reference to a Christian nation. Australia was a penal colony – drunkards, murderers, rapists, the dregs of British society. I doubt there were many Christians among the founders.

That e-mail had been “Fwd” to thousands. I wish peeps would check snopes.com BEFORE hitting “Fwd.“ * sigh *

Post #164

Subject: War Is Over! We Won!!

We Won!! War Is Over! There’ll be dancing, dancing in the streets. Newborn babies will be named “W.”

George W. Bush is a supergenius – he had the courage to surge when EVRYBODY told him not too. And the surge has worked, fulfilling its original promise of providing breathing room for the Iraqi government to get its act together.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday that his country wants some type of timetable for a withdrawal of American troops included in the deal the two countries are negotiating. It was the first time that he has explicitly and publicly called for a withdrawal timetable.

In Washington, the State Department declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations and said officials in Washington were not yet entirely sure what al-Maliki had said. "This falls in the category of ongoing negotiations, and I'm not going to talk about every single development, every single development in the negotiations," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Maliki offered no details. But his national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told The Associated Press the next day “We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn’t have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq.”

What does John W. McCain think?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN W. MCCAIN: It’s obvious that we would have to leave because -- if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policies are based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Whoops – wrong tape [blush] – that was McCain from 2004. Tuesday morning on MSNBC, McCain was asked about Maliki’s demand that the U.S., at least, make plans to go home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MORNING JOE)

MCCAIN: The Iraqis have made it very clear including meetings I had with the president and foreign minister of Iraq that it’s based on conditions on the ground. That’s what I’ve always said. I’ve always said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through a set timetable.

The same media outlets, by the way, were saying two weeks ago that Maliki said there would be no Status of Forces Agreement. But he is a politician; he is a leader of a country that’s finally coming together. There is no reason to assume that the Iraqis aren’t going to act in what they perceive as their national interests.

I believe we’ll act in ours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

There it is, peeps – our commitment to democracy is a sham. McCain has flip-flopped, moved the goalposts, snatched defeat from the jaws of Victory. Instead of Bush and McCain admitting their War was wrong, they’d rather set America on the course for a s-l-o-w suicide. What patriots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA: So when I hear John McCain saying, ‘We can’t surrender, we can’t wave the white flag’ nobody’s talking about surrender. We’re talking about common sense. We cannot be there forever.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: We can’t be there for 50 years. We can’t afford it. Our military families can’t bear that burden. We’ve got to get more troops into Afghanistan. I am going to bring this war to an end.

So, don’t be confused. I will bring the Iraq war to a close when I’m president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Post #163

Subject: John McCain, patriot?

What we need, what this country needs, is someone who will stand up and tell us the truth. We need a patriot, someone who has seen war and will give us a little straight-talk about the Iraq War.

“A war that began dishonorably cannot end honorably – the only honor comes with the end.” Lying, cheating, misguided, foolhardy, whatever your favorite term is to describe the sales campaign for the Iraq War – I think we can all agree that it was dishonorable

Ya’d think John McCain would be the perfect candidate to take on that task. Unfortunately, McCain has learned the wrong lesson about Vietnam – he thinks one more push will be honorable, sacrificing more men for… what?

I thought that the historical lesson of Vietnam was that we should not have been there in the first place – that will undoubtedly be the historical lesson of Iraq, too. The last thing we need is a President who is wrestling with the ghosts of Vietnam.

Can we convince those who want to do us harm that there is a better way BEFORE they do us more harm? Can we win the hearts and minds of the jihadists? Not as long as we are in Iraq…. * sigh *

I’m depressed now – I’ve been blogging for two years, and we have a major Presidential candidate who just doesn’t get it: Continued investment in Iraq weakens our position in the War on Terror. I shudder to think what it will take for McCain to realize that simple truth.